Romania – Systematic Country Diagnostic : background note – migration

Romania experienced the highest increase in emigration among the EU countries since 1990. Between 1990 and 2017, Romania registered the highest increase in the migration stock, at 287 percent. However, in terms of the share of emigrants in population, Romania is only the seventh in the EU, at 18.2 percent. Compared with regional peers, Romania ranked second, after Croatia, which recorded a 22.1 percent emigration rate. The impact of the high number of emigrants from the Eastern European countries was emphasized in numerous studies (OECD 2013, European Commission 2014, IMF 2016). These studies point to a less than clear-cut impact of emigration on the labor market, social and human capital development, and economic growth.